Palestinian keffiyeh

Damascus,SANA-The Palestinian keffiyeh, a head cover made locally in a factory amid of Hebron city in the occupied West Bank.

Farmers used to wear the keffiyeh to protect them from the heat of summer and the cold of winter, but its role in the Palestinian context turned into an act related to identity and it is considered a symbol of resistance against the “Israeli occupation”.

Palestinian heritage researcher Hamza Al-Aqrabawi said that the keffiyeh is a symbol of the fedayee work, and the name of the keffiyeh has been linked to the national struggle since the 1936 revolution in Palestine, when the revolutionary peasants wore the keffiyeh to hide their features while resisting the British forces in Palestine in order to avoid being arrested or reported on.

Then the people of the cities put it on, as the British began arresting everyone who wore the keffiyeh on his head, thinking that he was one of the revolutionaries,by that their task became difficult by arresting the revolutionaries after all the youth and elders of the village and city put it on.

The keffiyeh was the symbol of the struggle against the British Mandate, the Jewish immigrants, and their gangs, and the keffiyeh continued to be a symbol of revolution till these days , passing through all the stages of the Palestinian national struggle,with the outbreak of the contemporary Palestinian revolution in the second half of the sixties of the last century, the keffiyeh was associated with the fedayee as well as his weapon.

It is a symbol of resistance so the “Israeli occupation” through its crazy war against Gaza people and through the war of terminology, to banning the keffiyeh and the Palestinian flag and erasing the phrase “Palestine is free from all hostile media.”

But it was a beautiful gesture from the demonstrators in the streets of Spain by wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh,as Agence France-Presse reported that thousands of people demonstrated on 15-10-2023 in the Spanish capital, Madrid, under the slogan “Madrid with Palestine.”

They marched through the center of the capital, chanting slogans saluting the struggle of the Palestinian people and denouncing the genocide committed by the “Israeli occupation forces”.

Fedaa al-rahayiah / Mazen Eyon